Such suspicions fired up the French press whenever they thought an outstanding performance needed an explanation beyond the human. It led the French track cycling team’s director, Isabelle Gautheron, to accuse British Cycling of using ‘magic’ as opposed to Mavic wheels. What was it, the question went, that brought Team GB such success at the 2012 Olympics as well as some astounding performances in the Tour de France time trials?
Of course, Sir Dave Brailsford, then performance director of British Cycling, loved the intrigue this speculation generated. The issue was raised at a press conference, where he said to a suddenly hushed press corps: ‘I’ll tell you what is so special about our wheels. Our wheels . . . are . . . perfectly. . . round.’ The next day, the French press was alive with questions about how such perfection could be achieved. What methods do les rosbifs have to ensure this impossible perfection they talk of?
Not for the first time, Captain Dave had sunk a speculation fireboat heading his way. He successfully managed to ridicule the French claims – though it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they had some validity, if only in the imagination of the defeated.
Electrical Drive Systems
Some of the first advances in electric motors within bikes were pioneered by the Italians, who developed a magnetic device hidden within the frame of the bike. Combined with a copper rim to the wheel, this worked as a rudimentary electric motor. Development of this primitive system was eventually abandoned. However, the idea remained alive, and with the power of modern batteries and a direct cam-drive system it is now possible to get an assisted ride while apparently sitting on board a perfectly regular-looking bike. Set up correctly, the motor and battery system is completely contained within the set tube. It can be started and stopped at the touch of a button, allowing the rider a boost when needed for an attack or to simply give them a rest.
This is great news for, say, the club rider who wants to keep up with his fitter mates or a veteran riding with a younger group. So far, so good if all is declared and above board. But what if such a thing were used in the pro peloton? The monster is already with us, I’m afraid.
The discovery of a hidden motor inside the frame of a spare bike used by Femke Van den Driessche at the U23 Cyclo-cross World Championships in January 2016 finally gave some credence to allegations that had been previously dismissed.
Claims of motorised doping in pro cycling go back to 2010, when former pro rider and now head of the Italian Cycling national team Davide Cassani suggested that suspicious hand movements by Fabian Cancellara in that year’s Paris–Roubaix and Tour of Flanders indicated that he was engaging a switch to control a motor hidden within the frame of his bike. In a video available on YouTube, he alleges that the Swiss rider was able to power away from his fellow competitors immediately after moving his hand towards his right brake lever. Such claims were never proven.
In the 2014 Vuelta, Ryder Hesjedal, riding for Garmin Sharp at the time, crashed on a descent on Stage 7. As he got up from the road, his bike spun round in a full circle as if it was being powered by its back wheel. It looked to run away from him as Hesjedal struggled to control the bike. It was explained as a high-speed freewheeling rear still moving quickly post-crash. The UCI moved to investigate and found nothing untoward.
Rule Bending . . . the Grey Area
We’ve pondered the dark side – basically, cheating. Time, then, to consider what are regarded as the ‘lesser crimes’ in the game of limiting time loss. The sheer frequency and cheekiness of these mean you may just get away with it.
Cycling as a sport is, of course, magical but occasionally relies on the art of the illusion. This spell can be broken with clumsiness. As with all things in the world of magic, it may take those watching a little time to see how it’s done. Once you know the technique, you can figure out the trick. For that is what it is – a plain and simple attempt to confound the audience or referees with sleight of hand. And sometimes, if you do it well and don’t take the mickey, even the commissaires, despite knowing the trick, might not mind!
That said, having first referred to the ‘magic spanner’ in 1996, I’m rather proud that it is now a generic term for a bit of trickery. Let’s see how the magic works and consider a few other methods of helping a struggling or unfortunate rider back into the pack.
The team mechanic is hard-working, up early and to bed late, the unsung hero of the team. Washing bikes, fettling them, racking and repairing them. He is the only guy, apart from the rider, who is allowed a physical input during a race; he’s the chap with the belly and baggy shorts and fingers as agile as spitting pork sausages on a hot skillet. He’s on his knees a lot, frantically trying to replace the rear wheel of the team’s star rider who is standing there, hands on skinny hips, with an expression that easily decodes as ‘Get a bleedin’ move on, Colin, FFS.’ After the repair, our Colin can push a rider from a standing start before jumping back in the car. That push-off is the only physical assist allowable in open competition – as detailed in UCI Directive 138, Paragraph 6, Subsection 27d – or something like that, you get the idea.
Well, those may well be the rules, but what comes next may well get, ahem, a little bit ‘bendy’.
The rider is now up and gone, but the peloton
